With football season in full swing, most Illinois students are probably talking about the recent performances of running back Mikel Leshoure or wide receiver A.J. Jenkins.

Heck, some are probably just happy the football team is above .500 for the first time in over a year.

But what I’m guessing most don’t know is that one of the brightest stars in the Illinois program never steps onto the field.

Assistant Strength Coach Pete Princi makes his mark on the sidelines — and in the weight room.

“My boss told me when I got this job that I’m probably the youngest in the country to have this position,” Princi said. “Most people have to go through some kind of graduate assistantship program first. But since I did this last year as an undergrad that kind of gave me a jump.”

Princi, a Virginia native, serves as the top assistant to Illinois strength coach Lou Hernandez. He’s just 22 years-old, having earned his degree in kinesiology here at the U of I last spring, and I met him through a mutual friend last semester.

Princi said he enjoys his job with the football team primarily because he’s a former athlete himself.

“I played sports my whole life, so it just keeps me involved with football,” he said. “I played ball in high school and had some offers from some schools in Virginia, but then I got hurt my senior year and went to the University of South Carolina for school.”

So how’d he end up at Illinois?

“My dad suggested that I do strength and conditioning. I found out Illinois had one of the top kinesiology programs in the country so I applied here on a whim and got in. So I spur of the moment packed up my stuff and came.”

According to Princi, the football team lifts in groups of approximately eight players. Most of them do the same workouts, although some positions — such as the quarterbacks and offensive linemen — have more specialized lifting regimens.

So when asked who the top dogs in the Illini weight room are …

“Probably (linebacker) Ian Thomas,” Princi said. “His strength pound-for-pound is just unbelievable. (Wide receiver) Jarred Fayson is also very strong. He’s like a 350-pound power clean guy at 200 pounds.”

But Princi is quick to add he can more or less keep up with the players.

“Part of being the strength coach is you have to look the part,” he said. “You have to be able to do the stuff they’re doing. No one is going to sit and listen to some out of shape guy as their strength coach.”

As far as the rest of us normal people go, Princi recommends that everyone stick to roughly three days a week of strength training that incorporates three basic lifts — bench press, squats and dead lifts — into some routine (instructional videos for all of three can be found on YouTube).

He also recommends throwing in exercises like bicep curls or dumbbell bench presses here and there, as well as doing some enjoyable form of cardiovascular exercise a few times each week.

“Playing flag football or getting involved with campus recreation is really big because it’s fun that way,” Princi said. “Most people have a hard time sticking to a training routine. Pick something fun that you’re going to stick to.”

And who knows? Maybe one day, Princi will move on from training Division I athletes so everyone can take advantage of his expertise.

“My Dad is a wrestling coach back home, so he and I are really into (fitness) and we’ve always talked about having our own gym,” Princi said. “So I still have that in the back of my mind. But right now I’m just trying to play this out and see how it goes. I’d like to stay at Illinois for a while.”

Peter is a senior in Media.